Poem: Right As It Gets

 

Right As It Gets

 

beneath the statue of a blinded woman,

well-dressed politicians 

reaped votes by casting hate.

and yet to confront them was to suffer,

and logic no defense.

the way to get through

the verbal mindlock, one hell of a wall,

with anything less than civil war,

what could it be?

was it hidden somewhere

in the torture-fields of wounded egos,

in an unlikely ditch?

 

no one was going to find it,

this corpse of compromise lost,

because the firebranded fire-eaters 

saw themselves as able stewards,

divinely called to know the path 

through the very darkness they spread.

they were as right as it gets,

and their lies kept courting lies,

both between and within hearts--

the drought of their compassion

had brought the end of anything

that truthful people wanted to hear.

they kept right on, always so right,

swilling greed from the depths of ignorance,

cultivating blame in dried-up gardens,

and salting the invidious soil 

 with their lickspittle drool.

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3/29 ... better poem now, more mods

3/24/23  ... major changes .. tried to take the confused POV out of the poem 

12/21 ... significant mods to the poem in the "stewards" stanza

Still grading papers...